And thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour. Happy Friday.

About 200 miles southwest of Denver, Colorado, there`s a tiny little town called Paonia, Colorado. It`s a picturesque town of less than 2,000 people that sits on the banks of the Gunnison River. Every single year, on July 4th, the residents of Paonia hold a parade through their little downtown.

This year`s parade earlier this week featured this float from a group called Citizens for a Healthy Community. There was also this special ride for Paonia`s citizen of the year, nice car, congratulations, ma`am.

And then there was this -- a column of imposing green tanks rolling through the center of town. One of which was equipped with two mounted 40 millimeter anti-aircraft guns. These tanks, it turns out, (a), were not props, and (b), were the parade contribution from the local zillionaire, a fellow named Bill Koch.

You`ve heard of the Koch brothers. This is the other Koch brother.

Bill Koch decided he wanted to roll these military tanks through downtown Paonia as his contribution to the parade this year. It`s a free country. What are you going to do, right?

What one local Paonia resident who was, I guess, not fond of this decision, what he decided to do was this. He staged his own personal "Tiananmen comes to Paonia" protest. He walked into the middle of the road, parked himself right in front of the approaching column of Koch brother`s tanks and he refused to move.

The guy with the sign is a local resident named Sid, Sid Lewis. He`s a hairdresser. He`s a former town councilman.

His sign said on one side, "Buying the planet or just taking it?" And it said on the other, "Democracy bought and sold." Eventually, Mr. Lewis was physically escorted out of the way of the tanks by one of the men who was riding on top of the Koch tank. But not before he made his point.

And not before "The Denver Post" caught wind of the whole thing and christened the local hairdresser "Tiananmen Sid" for his free speech act of defiance.

Now, the whole "democracy being bought and sold" idea there may be a reference to Bill Koch specifically and his own outside influence as the guy putting the column of tanks in the local parade as the owner of multiple energy companies and huge swaths of not just Paonia but two neighboring counties in Colorado as well. It may also by a reference to what Bill Koch`s brothers are doing in national politics right now.

In total, Charles and David Koch have reportedly said they will spend $400 million trying to defeat President Obama and congressional Democrats this year -- $400 million, two guys. That`s more than the entire John McCain campaign spent in 2008.

And it`s not just them. In addition to them, Karl Rove has already announced his groups which appear to be mostly funded by very rich conservative individuals, they plan to raise and spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 million in this year`s elections. This doesn`t count the Romney campaign itself or the Republican Party. And that`s all on top of the Koch brothers` money.

How are the Democrats attempting to match that kind of fire power? To understand that, it may be helpful to keep in mind this image of the hairdresser in sandals against the column of tanks with the guns.

This weekend`s "New York Times" magazine has a long profile on what might be the Democratic Party`s best hope for competing with this juggernaut of right wing money that`s all aimed at defeating President Obama. It`s the Democrat`s own super PAC run by President Obama`s former deputy press secretary Bill Burton.

But look how they are getting outgunned thus far. This pro-Obama super PAC -- an anecdote is told in "New York Times" this weekend -- is super excited earlier this year. They worked their tails off. They put together a whole bunch of donations from left-leaning donors. They put it together piece by piece and they cobbled together $10 million in total for a multi-state ad buy. It was a huge investment for them, a landmark investment for them.

And then three days after they did that, they got one that one guy alone on the other side, Republican Sheldon Adelson, was personally contributing that much, $10 million, that day, to the Mitt Romney super PAC. Oh, and he was donating another $10 million that day to Karl Rove`s super PAC at the same time. Oh, and, by the way, he was now saying maybe he`ll contribute ten times that much, $100 million, when push comes to shove.

This is an optimistic profile of the Democratic side in the "New York Times" magazine this weekend. But what it says is that the only Democratic plan for trying to compete in terms of ad spending is to wage asymmetric warfare.

From "The Times" this weekend, having conceded the arms race before it began, the Democratic super PAC team recognized that its only hope lay in asymmetrical warfare, ruthless, relentless storytelling that could be done on the cheap.

You would never know this was the party in power, right? They`re talking about having to use guerilla tactics in order to compete with an overwhelming force on the other side that they could never hope to match.

A week ago tonight from Air Force One, President Obama convened a conference call with many of his top campaign donors and in that call, he reportedly sounded the alarm. According to reporting by Lloyd Grove at "The Daily Beast" who said he heard a recording from that call, the president told his donors, quote, "We are going to see more money spend on negative ads through the super PAC and anonymous outside groups than ever before. And if things continue as they have so far, I will be first sitting president in modern history to be outspent in his reelection campaign."

The president appears to be right in that assessment, at least so far. In May, President Obama was outraised by the Romney campaign by a lot. Mitt Romney managed to outraise Mr. Obama that month by nearly $17 million.

For this past month, for June, the Romney campaign has just happily announced that they`ve improved on their big number from May. They raised more than $100 million. And again, this is in addition to all of the outside money.

We still don`t know what it`s going to be in terms of the numbers for President Obama in June. But his campaign is already telegraphing that it is not nearly as much as what the Romney campaign raised.

So, that`s where things stand right now both for the campaign and these outside groups in terms of head-to-head Obama versus Obama fund-raising. But the overall picture speaks worse than that in terms of Democratic donors.

"The Boston Globe" reporting this week that overall, the super PACs supporting Republicans overall in the country have thus far for this election cycle raised more than triple, more than three times as much as the super PAC supporting the Democrats.

I mean, this isn`t just for the presidency. This is for everything. Look at that. Republics have 3 bucks for every 1 buck Democrats have.

Whether or not President Obama is able to beat Mitt Romney as -- what do we call him now? An underdog incumbent, an outspend underdog incumbent? Whether or not President Obama is able to overcome that, that great disparity, that great disparity benefitting the Republicans is also going to have implications down the ticket in the congressional races.

Who controls Congress? The money makes a really big difference. In 2010, whenever else was going on in the country, when the Republicans took back control of the House of Representatives in 2010, it is not incidental to note that the Republicans also outspend the Democrats that year by a two to one margin. It matters.

If Republicans can repeat the feat this year, then the sky is the limit for them in terms of Congress. They likely win control of Congress, I would venture a guess. Regardless of what happens in the presidential race.

This was not always an inherently partisan structural problem. I mean, in some ways now, it is, right? If you think about specifically what Citizens United did, that cleared the way for unlimited corporate donations. So, that does tilt the playing field in favor of corporate interests and therefore in favor of Republican interest.

But in terms of individual rich people in America making a difference in politics, that doesn`t necessarily have to lean inherently right. In 2004, as a matter of fact, it leans left.

The great conservative man, George Soros, liberal zillionaire, he gave more than $23 million to Democratic groups in 2004. Peter Lewis from Progressive Insurance, he gave just about the same amount, a little bit less. Film producer/business Steven Bing gave nearly $14 million to Democratic leaning groups in that same year, 2004.

Democrats -- in terms of rich Democratic donors in 2004, way outpaced the Republicans. But this time around, for whatever reason, those wealthy Democratic donors are sitting on the sidelines. George Soros has given about $2 million so far compared with $24 million before. Peter Lewis, $200,000 this time around compared with $23 million. Steve Bing, $425,000 compared to $14 million before.

So why aren`t big dollar Democratic campaign donors, the people who can really make a difference in terms of their personal decisions of what to do on campaign spending as individuals or campaign-related spending as individuals, why are they sitting on their hands on the Democratic side so far? Are they waiting for something and they`re going to get it later?

Do they want some kind of attention they`re not getting from the president? Do they think it`s hopeless because, yes, maybe they`re rich guys but they`re not the Koch brothers and they never will be and they`ll be outspent no matter what they do?

Is the post-Citizens United political zillionaire thunderdome that`s been created by the Supreme Court now so inherently distasteful to people who have Democratic politics, they just don`t want to play in that dirty game anymore?

For those of us of who are watching this from the outside, reporting on it, observing on it, thinking about what it means for our country, the likely outcome of the election, it seems like an important question, an important part of the process. But for the people who are inside making these decisions, how do they view their role in it? And what do they -- what do they think of this really big, really obvious disparity this year between the two sides that just keeps getting worse and worse no matter how much the Democrats and the president himself sound the alarm about it?

Joining us now is one of the country`s major fund-raisers for President Obama. He is a bundler of donations to president, which we know because President Obama`s campaign discloses that, even though Mr. Romney does not. You know him better as the cofounder of Miramax Films, the co-chairman of the Weinstein Company. One of America`s best known and most accomplished film producers, Harvey Weinstein.

Thank you for joining us.

HARVEY WEINSTEIN, FILM PRODUCER: Hi, Rachel. Nice to be here.

MADDOW: It`s nice to be here, too. We had drama with the microphone and the person falling down at the top of the segment. You handled it perfectly.

WEINSTEIN: Thanks. It reminded me of one of my movies, one of my thrillers.

MADDOW: If it ends up in a thriller, I want to cut it.

Why are -- why have you been a fund-raiser, a bundler for President Obama? And what`s your reaction to that sort of disparity I was talking about between the two sides?

WEINSTEIN: You know, when you talk about spending money, I`ll give you an example of two movies that I distribute. I spent the exact same amount on both movies.

One movie was called "The King`s Speech." It grossed $140 million, won a few Oscars, including best picture and did sensational based on its budget.

The other was called "Our Idiot Brother." We spent the same amount of money and the movie grossed $25 million. Not bad for what we paid for it -- you know, OK, a little bit of profit.

To me, Romney is "Our Idiot Brother" and Obama is "The King`s Speech." You can spend all the money in the world, if you`ve got a bad product, it doesn`t matter.

Ask anybody on Madison Avenue, don`t ask the Wall Street guys, bring the advertising guys on. If I have a defective product, I could spend $5 billion, I`m not going to sell anything. The Edsel spend more money on the Ford than any car in history and it was the egg -- the bomb of the lifetime. We could go through product after product.

But let`s make it more fun. I`m happy if the Koch brothers would come on the show and I could get Jeffrey Katzenberg and some of the other guys. And we can just talk about their politics.

MADDOW: Why do you think we`re seeing this change over time from people who have Democratic politics who do support this president, having been willing to give a lot of money on the Democratic side in the past, just giving less this year?

WEINSTEIN: I think people are confident on the Democratic side.

MADDOW: Oh, really (ph)?

WEINSTEIN: I think you see, you know, Romney and you hear even conservatives, Rupert Murdoch criticizing Mitt Romney. There`s so much dissention, and, you know, somebody Mike Lupica wrote a column in "The Daily News" calling him a mute Romney. He doesn`t say anything. Maybe that`s why they have to raise that money and have advertising.

We have a president who speaks and speaks to the issues. They have a candidate who says nothing. And they also have a campaign strategy which is say nothing.

At a certain point, the American public will get tired of it. If the Democrats need money, people will raise more. Right now, I think everybody is sitting back and saying, why spend it if we don`t have to? If we have to, they will.

MADDOW: Is the Congress argument compelling to donors or are donors really motivated, pretty good when you talk to other people and you`re trying to get out to people donate, people really motivated by the top of the ticket. That report from the "Boston Globe" where it`s more than three to one Republicans versus Democrats, and that`s not just for the presidential race, it`s for everything, that looks like a Republican Congress to me, which Democratic minded people can`t be -- have to be a little bothered by.

WEINSTEIN: You know, the other thing about the way they (INAUDIBLE), that wish fulfillment that their candidate will win and then they`ll get a tax cut. It`s the same ridiculous thing. They`ll spend $300 million and they expect it on their multibillion dollar companies, they`ll get $400 million back and make a profit on their donation. Maybe they will if a Republican gets in, but (a), it will hurt the country and we`ll be back in a recession.

It`s amazing that Sheldon Adelson is spending $10 million and $10 million and $10 million. In 2008 and 2007, when we have a Republican administration, and George Bush was the president, he was on his knees. I mean, his company was two seconds away from being bankrupt.

He probably owes more to President Obama for being able to write those checks because Obama righted the country from the impending disaster that wasn`t caused by him at all. But Sheldon Adelson was two seconds away from going bankrupt.

MADDOW: In terms of your politics, not just thinking about this election but the last term and what has happened with Congress going from Democrat control to Republican control and all this -- are there things that you want to be happening that aren`t happening? Are there things you want the president to be doing in policy or in politics that you`re urging him to do or think he should do that he`s not doing?

WEINSTEIN: I think the president is doing a fantastic job. It`s just trying to communicate it. And it`s always hard when you`re the incumbent because you inherit all of the problems and people think even if you fix it, it`s never fast enough.

So I`m very happy with what the president is doing. And when I think of the competition, I get happier every minute. I`m thrilled. And I have voted Republican in the past. It`s not fair to say, oh, Harvey Weinstein, Democrat. I voted for Governor Pataki, and I raised funds for Governor Pataki. I took Governor Pataki out to meet some of the most prominent Democrats, raised money for him. I voted for Rudy Giuliani as well and did the same. When there`s a good man, there`s a good man.

With all due respect to Governor Romney, he`s not capable to run the United States.

MADDOW: Can I ask you a movie question?

WEINSTEIN: Much better for me.

(LAUGHTER)

WEINSTEIN: I know I have to pay my dues and answer these political questions.

MADDOW: You`re pretty good. Here`s the thing -- I`m the least pop culture aware person in the world, but I know what I like. And you I`m sure, by your design, but from my perspective and it`s kind of creepy coincidence happen to be the producer of most of the movies that I like, so that`s a compliment that I don`t understand. It`s just that I share your taste and I think you`re good at what you do.

WEINSTEIN: Thank you, Rachel.

MADDOW: And you`re bringing over this movie that is the top grossing film in France ever?

WEINSTEIN: It`s the number two and around the world, and it`s the number one French movie ever released.

MADDOW: So we have a little clip of it that I want to show and then I have a question about why you think -- how you decide whether or not Americans like something that French people like. Hold on. We`ll play the clip, hold on.

(MOVIE CLIP PLAYS, "THE INTOUCHABLES"/THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY)

MADDOW: Main character is paralyzed from the neck down. He`s persuading his terrified personnel aide to go paragliding with him.

How do you know when something is going to -- when something works in another country, whether or not Americans are going to like it?

WEINSTEIN: Well, in this situation, I read the script.

MADDOW: Yes.

WEINSTEIN: A young man in my office, Peter, you know, came to us and said I just read this great script. So, I read the script, too. And it was amazing. I just felt something about this movie worked. And I don`t know, I got lucky with the artists and people say it`s a bump-up for me. I went from a silent movie to actually even though it`s in French, it`s got sound this time.

And you know, it`s just -- I have never had an experience where people see a movie in a theater like this, this movie, "The Intouchables": and they walk out of it sky high. It`s a true story, and I think you feel elated watching this movie.

MADDOW: The opening car chase scene has the same effect.

It`s called the "The Intouchables," new film from Weinstein Company. Harvey Weinstein, it`s great to have you here. It`s nice to be able to talk really candidly with you.

WEINSTEIN: Can I ask you a question?

MADDOW: Yes.

WEINSTEIN: I saw a poster for "Scary Movie". My brother and David Zucker who made all the "Scary Movies" are about to go into production. How did you know the cast we had? We have not even announced them, and you have that story first. That`s breaking news.

MADDOW: Remember how I said it was -- yes, I think it`s creepy that you`re in my head about what movies to make. Now, you`re in my head, too. It`s a deal, man.

WEINSTEIN: Thank you, Rachel.

MADDOW: Thank you.

We`ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: "Debunktion Junction," what`s my function?

All right. True or false -- Mitt Romney is the Republican nominee for president? It`s a done deal. According to Republican Party rules, there`s no other candidate with enough delegates to be the nominee. Mr. Romney clinched the nomination in May, in the Texas primary, where he won more than 100 delegates

So, now, Mitt Romney is the undisputed Republican nominee for president in the 2012 election. Is that true or is that false?

False. Remember Congressman Ron Paul? Congressman Paul has actively -- has stopped actively campaigning for president, but his supporters have not actively supporting him, including fighting it out in the states to win for Ron Paul those states` delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa, where the nominee of the party actually gets chosen.

Ron Paul has won a majority of delegates from Iowa, from Maine, from Minnesota, and Louisiana. That`s four states. And according to Republican Party rules, order to be eligible to be nominated at the convention, you only need to win five states.

Quote, "Each candidate four nominations shall demonstrate the plurality of a delegates from each of the five or more states." Ron Paul has already got four states. He`s only one state away for meeting the nominating requirement to be able to be nominated at the convention. In turns out he could get that one more state a week from tomorrow, when the Nebraska state Republican Party holds its state convention to pick its delegates to go to the national convention in Tampa.

So here`s the rub. Even though Mitt Romney won the Nebraska primary, Ron Paul delegates have proven themselves to be really good at taking over the state conventions and getting themselves picked to be the delegates. Nebraska Republican Party officials say they are so worried about this prospect that they told us today they are hiring extra security for their convention. Quote, "For the purposes of maintaining an orderly convention."

So depending on what happens in Nebraska next weekend, a week from tomorrow, hey, it`s possible that Ron Paul is also going to be nominated at the convention in Tampa. Along with Mitt Romney, which means dueling speeches from both nominees, and votes and a floor fight and something really, really specific and rules based for those really specific rules-based Ron Paul delegates to do at the convention instead of just cheer for things related to the fed.

So, yes, Mitt Romney is probably going to be the Republican presidential nominee, but it is not a done deal. All eyes on Nebraska next weekend.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: If you`re looking at the news online and you`re looking not just at the national papers and the wires and the political sites. But you`re looking at regional papers, local news sources. One thing that you will find right now almost everywhere in the country are front page stories and local news coverage about Americans living through hot weather in a way we do not think of Americans as living right now. Namely, I`m talking about Americans living without electric power.

So, here on the front page of the "Columbus Dispatch", an American woman hanging her laundry to dry on a chain-link fence and hitting up some soup on an outdoor grill. Here on Columbus TV station`s front page, a story about residents suffering through a seventh day without electricity.

Here at the "Charleston, West Virginia Gazette", you have linemen working 16 hour days to try to restore power that has been out also for seven days.

Here in a Ft. Wayne, Indiana local TV station`s front page, you`ve got news that 36,000 households are still without power since last Friday.

Here in "The Richmond Times-Dispatch" in Virginia, you have an elderly woman who has to turn out every light in the house to be able to run the medical device that she needs off of a generator because her electricity has been out for eight days now. It`s a great reminder, right, that technological advances do not all proceed at the same pace.

So, while we have had electrical power delivered to most homes in America since the 1930s, in 2012, when those power lines come down in totally predictable annual weather events, we cannot get those lines back up for a week, maybe longer, who knows?

But meanwhile, we can use the Internet and our lightning fast iPhone apps to identify every up to the minute detail in infinitely zoomable, full color satellite map, overlaying live interactive infographics, precise information about where our 20th century power lines are not connecting to our houses to give us electricity anymore. We can be very precise in a very technologically adept way about our very, very low tech problem.

This is one of those issues at the man on the street level aggravates everybody the same way. I have had staunch Republican friends tell me after a long power outage at their home with a new baby that they would vote for any Democrat. They would cross party lines for the first time in their lines and vote for a Democrat even if it was the Democrat who would promise to bury the freakin` power lines so they don`t come down in every storm.

The dyspeptic easily offended former George W. Bush speechwriter, David Frum, on the right, wrote a column this week for CNN.com with stars in his eyes for the power grid in Germany which has an average rate of 21 minutes per year. They lose power in Germany for less than a half an hour over the course of a year.

If you told that to this woman in Columbus, she would probably learn German and move to Dusseldorf before the soup was hot.

But beyond just individual voices ignoring party lines, to saying that we ought to do something about our lousy infrastructure, saying we ought to do something to be able to keep the lights on in a way that makes us seem at least 20th century if not 21st century.

There`s also one aspect of our current national failure on this issue that could ultimately improve the chances that we might get something done on it moving forward. That is some that some of the most numerous and most devastating power outages in the country right now, for this past week at least, have been in the Washington, D.C. area.

Here`s a map of D.C. area power outages. Look at that. Because even if we can`t keep the lights on, we do have awesome online interfaces telling us exactly how and where we can`t keep the lights on.

You can zoom in and get the status of each of these zillion power outages and the expected restoration time for all these places. And this is just a Google map that somebody has put together. There`s also the official power outage map from the same region, from the utility company, which is pretty well done, too.

See that color there, the orange? That means between 1,000 and 5,000 households in that shaded area are still without power. The storms that caused this power outage were seven days ago, June 29th, and every single day since then has been above 95 degrees in the Washington, D.C. area -- with all those people with no power.

Of course, not everything that afflicts Washington, D.C. as a place gets fixed because politicians live there. If that were the case, the Washington, D.C. license plates would not say taxation without representation.

But still, when stuff happens to D.C., when politicians and the political chattering classes are among those who are affected by something that is fundamentally, elementally disruptive to our lives and also humiliating to us as citizens, when it`s something you expect the richest country on Earth to do, that we for some reason cannot do and that thing affects you and your family`s life personally, that can create the lasting impression that can lead to political momentum -- sometimes. At least you would think.

There`s news on that front today that`s kind of encouraging, and we`ll be back to talk about with President Obama`s former top economic adviser, right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Any of you who believes your voice could make a difference, I want to reaffirm your belief. You made this happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: President Obama giving a shout out to people who wrote or called or e-mails or tweeted their member of Congress about a big piece of legislation that he just signed, the transportation bill.

He brought two main groups of people with him other than elected officials for the signing. He brought college students because it was this transportation bill that included the language about the student loans, keeping people`s student loan rates from doubling this week. The other group of people he brought him besides elected officials and college students were construction workers, because this is the transportation bill so it involves funding for lots and lots of construction products -- rebuilding roads and bridges and highways all across the country.

And you know what? This is that you`re looking at with the president putting pen to paper, this is kind of a miracle because in order to get to the point where President Obama could sign this thing and have this photo-op today, the United States Congress had to pass something. This Congress. And not just a resolution about hating bad things and loving good things like they usually do, and not just some other new anti-abortion thing they have come up, with big actual policy for the whole country.

Of course, don`t get too excited about the miraculous return of the spirit of constructive bipartisanship on Capitol Hill. In order to get to this point today, the president did have to sign a one-week long transportation and student loan bill last week because the bill miracle bill had not yet made its way to his desk and the deadlines had hit. Student loan rates were going to go up, construction workers were going to be laid off until they could get this done. So, they have to sort of week-long bubbling of the issue, unable to get their act together.

But they did get their act together. Big picture here, the bill got signed, and the whole country -- left, right, and center, frankly, is livid about the fact our power indefinitely, sometimes for weeks at a time, because there was a thunderstorm somewhere, because the thunderstorms are apparently something we ever, ever thought about having before, every summer when it happens. It`s a complete shot. And in the winter, we`re equally unprepared for the cold kinds of storms.

Infrastructure is something that people care about, right, on both sides of the aisle. If you look at the policy statements of both candidates running for president right now, they both at least say they want infrastructure investment. President Obama is proposing it. Mitt Romney is saying that he likes it in theory, in practice he has been deriding it as wasteful stimulus that does not work.

But Congress did pass this bill that has good infrastructure investment in this transportation thing today. If you turn the frown upside down and you try to look at the possibility of doing something here, look at the country`s needs in terms of keeping the lights on and in terms of the economy and putting people to work, don`t we, in fact, have a way forward on this one issue?

Couldn`t more infrastructure stuff get done? Even now, even people calling it names, even this year, even with this Congress, even with this election?

I feel hopeful about this.

Christina Romer is the former chair of President Obama`s counsel of economic advisers. She`s now a professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley.

Christina Romer, thank you so much for your time. It`s nice to have you here.

CHRISTINA ROMER, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY: It`s great to be with you.

MADDOW: You are an expert on the economic side of this, about what types of policies the government can pursue to try to right the economy when it`s in a bad way and to try to get maximize employment to the extent we can. How important is infrastructure investment in the universe of different spending policies and fiscal policies that the government can adopt?

ROMER: It`s incredibly important. I think if you were to say what is the one small silver lining to this horrible recession that we have been through is that it has at least generated a lot of new research on what can fiscal policy do, what can government spending do?

And the overwhelming conclusion of all of that research is that government spending absolutely can help you recover from a recession, and among the kinds of government spending that`s the most useful, it`s infrastructure.

It`s important to define it infrastructure pretty broadly. So, of course, it`s roads and bridges and it is absolutely power lines like you described. But I`d also put in human infrastructure -- so things like education make human beings more productive and more efficient over time. And likewise, money spent for research and development and basic science -- those are things that both put people to work right now and make us more productive over time. And it`s incredibly viable and incredibly useful.

MADDOW: I feel like what we`re up against here with this infrastructure discussion is sort of we`re stuck between two prongs that are going in the same direction, but they feel like they`re competing. And one of them is that everybody talks about the need to improve our infrastructure. Everybody talks about how that is something that`s good for the country economically, that`s something that is good for the country in terms of what that infrastructure, the needs that that infrastructure serves in an immediate way. But the kind of things that you described on the right, those get derided not as investment, not as infrastructure -- fixing the infrastructure, but just as spending.

How do you engage with that qualitative argument on the right, that spending itself is so toxic that even when it`s spending on stuff that we like, now is not the time to do it?

ROMBER: I think, I`m a great believer in evidence-based policy making. I just have to believe that if you keep showing Republicans the studies, the evidence, that say, you know, the returns to government spending to basic science are so enormous in terms of what they do for patents down the road, for what they do for our productivity down the road that eventually you have to break through.

And I think, you know, that`s the only way I know to do it is to just keep showing them the evidence, trying to build the case. And you made the important point, you know, the average person in the street understands this, they see what their school means for their kids. They see what the power lines mean for their own lives.

Businesses understand it. They`re the ones screaming for better ports and better roads and bridges that aren`t falling down. You -- there ought to be, as you have described, a way to have a national consensus on this issue.

The other thing to point out is this is a uniquely good time to be doing this, right? So, borrowing costs are at historic lows. So the government can borrow to do these things. And we have so many unemployed construction workers and electrical workers and all those things, it`s an excellent time to be doing this. It`s a win-win. It`s good for the economy now and jobs, it`s good for the economy in the future because we`re more productive.

As a former top advisor to the president who is now back in the academic world, what`s your case to the administration given this election year about what can be done now to create jobs, to do the kinds of things you`re talking about, maybe without even having to go to Congress?

ROMER: That is what is so hard, right, because the kinds of things we`re talking about -- so infrastructure spending, or even tax changes like giving small businesses a tax cut if they hire people, those things require government, you know, require Congress` approval. What the president can do is very limited.

You know, he has been trying lots of things. So, you know, things like our trade policy, the president does have a lot of leeway there, and he`s worked very hard to say, well, if we don`t have demand for American products here in America, let`s try to get some foreign demand. That will at least put -- you know, if we export more, that will put more of our workers back to work.

The president has pushed very hard. We saw just today, he was bringing in another enforcement action against China to try to open up that market for American firms. So that`s certainly important.

You know, the main entity here that could do something without Congress is the Federal Reserve. And that`s obviously something that the president can`t control, but, gosh, I wish they would do something because they`re the one agency that maybe could help to move the dial without Congress doing anything and I`m so frustrated that they`re sitting on the sidelines.

MADDOW: I don`t think they watch, but if I run into them, I`ll pass on your frustration.

(CROSSTALK)

MADDOW: Christina Romer, former chair of President Obama`s Council of Economic Advisers now at Berkeley economics adviser, thank you so much for your time tonight. It`s really nice for us to have you here.

ROMER: Thank you.

MADDOW: All right. Hands down the most gobsmacking stories about traditions, sports, and trees that you will ever hear, ever. It`s our close of the show tonight. Please stay tuned for it. We`re very happy with it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: Breaking news, this just crossed a moment ago. We have just been informed that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has touched down in Kabul, in Afghanistan. This is a previously unannounced visit. This happens a lot with senior administration officials and sometimes even with officials as senior as the president.

We did not know she was going to Kabul before. We just learned that she`s there.

She will apparently be having a meeting and doing a press availability with President Karzai in Afghanistan. She`ll also be at some point at the U.S. embassy. Again, we do not know if she`s there to announce something specific or what`s going to happen exactly at the press avail, but she`s with President Karzai coming up in Kabul.

Again, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, an unannounced trip to Afghanistan.

We`ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: Our nation`s capital got a little less strange today. If you`re like me and like a little strange in your politics, you may feel sadness about this or some Thad-ness, at least.

Thaddeus McCotter, Republican congressman, son of Michigan, guitar hero, has resigned from Congress. Already, Mr. McCotter has said he would not run to hold on to his seat this year after he failed to make the ballot for the Republican primary. His campaign turned in only a fraction of the valid signatures required to get him on the ballot, along with page after page of clumsily cut and pasted obviously fraudulent signatures.

Mr. McCotter says he still doesn`t know how that happened and he says he supports the Michigan criminal investigation into that. But him failing to qualify for the ballot, that has long meant that this guy, a reindeer herder named Kerry Bentivolio is going to be the only candidate on the ballot in the Republican primary for that congressional seat tat the Republicans now hold in Michigan.

Mr. McCotter briefly considered a write-in bid, but he gave that up. All that plus his failed presidential campaign last year, plus a really weird revelation this week about an unhinged sexist TV show he was writing scripts for, somehow it all proved too much for Congressman Thaddeus McCotter. He announced this evening that he will not be finishing his term.

He says, quote, "The recent events totally of calumnies, indignities and deceits have weighed most heavily upon my family. Thus, acutely aware one cannot rebuild their hearth of home amongst the ruins of their U.S. House office., for the sake of loved ones, I must strike another match, go start anew by embracing the promotion back from public servants to sovereign citizen."

Thaddeus McCotter, with the help of lyrics from "It`s All Over Now, Baby Blue", promoting himself today from congressman to sovereign citizen.

Sovereign citizen -- you are free to Google that if the chair in front of your computer comes with a seat belt.

Good luck, Thaddeus McCotter. He resigned as you served, weirdly. But I do not mean that in a bad way.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: The other day in Opelika, Alabama, they tried to pick a jury for the trial of this man. He`s a University of Alabama football fan. He stands accused of criminal mischief and desecrating a venerable object. The venerable object in this case is a pair of live oak trees on the campus of auburn university nearby.

The man accused is an Alabama fan. Auburn and Alabama are rivals. These two oak trees are where generations of Auburn students and fans have gone to celebrate wins by the Auburn football team, particularly those over Alabama.

These are Toomer`s trees, they are called. And team loyalty aside, they are pretty much as venerable an object as you could find in the state of Alabama.

In the first round of questioning in this case about the desecration of these trees, nearly half the potential jurors in the case said they personally had celebrated something about Auburn under those Toomer Oaks. So, that`s a big deal. What an institution Toomer`s trees are.

It is the cultural importance of those trees to Auburn University and Alabama as a state that made so surreal this phone call to a local radio show last year. Listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

CALLER: The weekend after the Iron Bowl, I went to Auburn, Alabama, because I live 30 miles away and I poisoned the two Toomer`s trees. I put Spike 80DF in them.

PAUL FINEBAUN: Did they die?

CALLER: Do what?

FINEBAUN: Did they die?

CALLER: They`re not dead yet, but they definitely will die.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MADDOW: The man calling into a radio station saying he killed the Toomer oaks with tree poison, with an herbicide. And he did do it or somebody did it at least. It was not an idle boost.

Ever since they learned of the poisoning, Auburn has been trying to save their beloved trees. We reported a year ago on some of their efforts. They removed and replaced the contaminated soil from around the roots. They added activated liquid charcoal to neutralize the effect of the poison. They coated the leaves of the trees with what`s called an anti-transferent (ph) in an effort to keep the trees from drinking in more poison water.

This spring, they injected the trees with sugar, trying to feed the trees, since the trees are now too sick to feed themselves.

A former producer for this show, Tina Cone, is on a worldwide walk about right now. And every once in awhile sends us something from her travels. Her travels took her to Auburn, Alabama. And while she was there, she checked in on the rescue for us.

The Auburn horticulturist, Gary Keever, says the trees have been as low as 5 percent of their usual foliage. Professor Keever says they are painfully bare, they are in trouble. And if these were any other trees on campus, they would have been cut down already.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GARY KEEVER, AUBURN UNIVERSITY HORTICULTURIST: Very likely by this fall, you know, they`re going to be if they continue at the rate they`re going, they`re going to be at a point where they`re aesthetically dead, you know, that we`re going to recognize that we need to replace these trees.

These two fissures appeared sometime between late fall and mid winter last year, early part of this year. And since then, the bark around these fissures has loosened; you can see the movement in it. This is not normal right here.

We`ve got some decay in the base on this side here. You can see by the darkened wood. We`re definitely going to lose some of the bark on this side of the try and the decay is not a good sign.

These shoots at the base of one of the Toomer`s oaks are called rhizomic shoots, or most people called them suckers. These appear healthy, but not all of these rhizomic shoots are healthy.

If you move over here, you see classic signs of the herbicide. This is what we saw for much of last year. You see the herbicide oftentimes will accumulate along the margins of the leaves. The leaves will yellow, brown and then they typically would drop off.

We`ve already lost leaves along some of the stems. Some leaves are persisting. But this is very evident of the herbicide injury.

We`ve done many things to try to save these trees but if you look at the trees, it`s very clear that we haven`t been completely successful. And based on the decline that we continue to see, it`s very likely that these trees are not going to survive in spite of our efforts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Tree murder. So that`s the deal with Auburn`s venerable objects, Toomer`s trees. Gary Keever says they`ve shown no sign of responding to these latest treatments, those injections with sugar. He says he`s not giving up yet, but he`s also too much of a scientist to avoid seeing the obvious outcome here.

Meanwhile, the man who is accused of poisoning the trees has now pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. He told the Auburn student newspaper that the trial was already sapping his strength. That he thought he was going to pass out the first morning of jury selection. He said he lost 62 pounds since being arrested and he`s taking 18 kinds of medicine.

His wife says he won`t make it through the trial without something happening -- whatever that means.

Not incidentally in that same Auburn student newspaper article, the paper`s reporter says the accused tree killer admitted his crime, that he told the student newspaper reporter that he had, in fact, poisoned the trees.

The man`s defense says the man did no such thing, admitted no such thing. But the paper is standing by its story and what its reporter says the suspect told them.

The defense also says they want this trial move away from Auburn, Alabama, and they may get their wish. Last month, just two days into jury selection, the jury in the case suspended the trial after it interviewed perspective jurors and found at least 10 of them who had seen the front page of Auburn student newspaper story quoting the suspect as saying he had done it, he had poisoned the trees, which his defense attorney says he didn`t say.

The judge ruled that the jury pool is too tainted to continue and the case may have to leave is the whole district of Alabama altogether. The trial is set to start again in the fall.

It is a case of tree murder. Where it may be impossible to find a jury of 12 people who have not been in love with the murder victim, in love with those trees or at least who do not already believe in their hearts they know who killed those trees.

This is a sports story. This is an Alabama story, may be a crazy old guy story or even a crime story. But what is it is turning into now is a story of profound human attachment beyond what we usually admit to and beyond what makes sense on paper -- which is why I am ending this now with pictures of the Toomer`s oaks in Alabama in much happier times.

And with that uplifting story in mind, there`s really only one place you can go now. At least we`re all going together, though. Three, two, one -- prison.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.END

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